On January 18 the court convicted all the accused and acquitted the then Superintendent of Police D W Negi.The prosecution examined over 52 witnesses in the case. On July 4, 2017, a 16-year-old girl had gone missing in Kotkhai near Shimla and her body was found from the forests two days later on July 6.The post-mortem report had confirmed rape and murder later, a case was registered.On July 13, 2017, a Special Investigating Team (SIT) headed by Zaidi was constituted by the then state government after public and outcry, which arrested Suraj Singh and four other alleged accused.On the intervening night of July 18 and 19, Singh died in police custody as per the CBI; the state police allegedly tortured him to extract his confession.The medical board concluded in its report that the injuries on the body of the deceased were sustained by a blunt hard cylindrical object such as lathi, rod or baton. The post-mortem showed over 20 injuries on Suraj’s body which, the CBI claimed, could not have been sustained in a scuffle. Another report by a board of AIIMS doctors too confirmed torture. However, the Himachal Pradesh Police has then claimed that he was killed by another accused in a scuffle in the lock-up.The Himachal Pradesh High Court then handed over the investigations of both the cases to the CBI.
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